The Ways Trauma Survivors Attempt to Regulate Their Nervous Systems
Many of our self-destructive behaviors are how we survived by attempting to regulate our nervous system
“Desperate times call for desperate measures.”
Many people who have experienced traumatic experiences in their life turn to addictive and self-destructive behaviors to cope. What most people don’t realize is that these behaviors individuals turn to give a false sense of regulation to the nervous system.
Remember our conversation about the window of tolerance? These behaviors often give a person the sense of having a window of tolerance, but rather than widening the window of tolerance, addictive and self-destructive behaviors often lead to a narrow window of tolerance. When a person has a narrow window of tolerance any bit of emotion or nervous system activation feels completely intolerable.
Some addictive and self-destructive behaviors that are common among trauma survivors are substance use, self-harm, and disordered eating (restricting, binging, purging). These behaviors may provide immediate relief for the distress a person is feeling in the moment, but they often do not help long term or in the big picture.
When you look at the window of tolerance, when you’re outside of that window you’re either hyper-aroused or you are hypo-aroused.
If hyper-aroused, a person is overwhelmed by what they are experiencing inside and around themselves and in order to find relief they may find themselves drinking, using drugs, self-harming, or falling victim to eating disorder behaviors. People may even begin to think about and plan suicide when hyper-aroused as an escape from the overwhelm. They will engage in behaviors that are likely to decrease the hyperactivation to give themselves a false sense of the window of tolerance.
When hypo-arousal is chronic a person is likely feeling numb, dead, or empty inside. They often resort to stimulatns, self-harm, or binging/purging to increase activation, to feel something different or even to feel something at all. Sometimes people will seek to sustain the feelings of numbness (because it’s better than being overwhelmed) through downers.
Here’s a video that talks about how our trauma shapes our coping mechanisms.
Do you recognize yourself in any of these coping mechanisms?